UX Problems

I’m not one to complain but… (just kidding, I’m French!)

One of the things that really annoys me is getting to the end of my shampoo bottle, when no product comes out and you end up throwing it away. So far, nothing to get upset about, right? Except that you don’t realise just how much product is actually left inside the “empty” bottle.

I picked up the habit from my mum to always cut in half the hand cream tubes when I’m reaching the end and no more product is coming out. That’s when most people would throw the tube away. Now look at the photo below, and notice the amount of product left! (And yes, Dealz is great value, but here’s an important question: do Vaseline really think “handcrème” is the French translation of hand cream???).

I have never cut in half a shampoo bottle, but I’d imagine there is just as much left in the bottle in the end as there is in hand cream containers.

On my way home last night, I was trying to come up with a solution to this problem, new designs for the bottles…

And while having breakfast this morning, the solution just presented itself.

When I reached the end of my squeezy bottle of honey, I could just unscrew the cap, and let the liquid run until the bottle was actually empty. So simple.

So here’s my question, why can’t we do that with other bottles?? The design is very close, but for some reason it is always impossible to unscrew the cap of shampoos/conditioners/hand creams/ face creams/shower gels, etc.

I guess companies do it so that we end up throwing away half the product and buying more and more new ones… But surely that’s not keeping the user needs in mind, is it? It’s a waste of our money, and even though their production goes up, in the end all the amount of half empty bottles going to the bin can’t be good for the planet either…

Here, you can admire the design of Aldi’s honey squeezy bottles:

So here’s hoping I’m not the only one being annoyed by this and that one day, I’ll be able to finish a bottle without having to cut it in half!

Rant over.